Indonesia April trade surplus jumps to $670m

Indonesia booked a $670 million trade surplus in April, rising from $490 million in March as imports continued to fall faster than exports, the official Statistics Agency said Monday. The surplus beat the median forecast for a $345 million surplus from a Wall Street Journal poll of 10 regional economists. 

    On the other hand, imports reached $0.78 billion, down 4.6% from March due to lower imports of food commodities such as wheat and sugar. Compared with a year earlier, imports dropped 14.6%. Indonesia booked a $2.3 billion trade surplus in the first four months of the year as exports amounted to $45.1 billion and imports $42.7 billion. 

    During the first four months of the year, manufacturing exports were the single largest contributor to Indonesia's non-oil and non-gas exports. During the same period, imports of mechanical and electrical appliances dominated its non- oil and non-gas imports